A Year After Haiti’s Earthquake, Barriers to Health Care Endure

It has been one year since a 7.2-magnitude earthquake struck near the city of Les Cayes, Haiti — but the damages and consequences of the disaster are still seen and felt every day.

Many health facilities haven’t reopened, and people are still receiving health care in makeshift tents. Some facilities that are open are operating at less than half capacity, and tens of thousands of people are still living in shelters.

Conditions are especially dire in rural communities like Boucan and Bedard, where there were many barriers to health services even before the earthquake. This is where Project HOPE focused on connecting communities to care, especially pregnant women, children, people with disabilities, and older citizens.

Alain, 41, is a farmer in Bedard. He knows firsthand how hard it is to access health care here: the one clinic in the area had closed even before the earthquake. His wife’s last pregnancy was difficult, and she could have lost her baby, or even her life, if neighbors had not volunteered to drive her to the hospital.

When Alain heard about a mobile clinic operated by Project HOPE, he and his wife walked there with their five children to seek medical care the very next day.

“Sometimes children get sick and we don’t have the financial means to take them to a consultation. We give them herbal teas to relieve them,” he said. “We walked three hours to arrive at the mobile clinic because we really need this consultation, especially the children.”

The clinic was held at a former health center and a school, both of which had been damaged by the earthquake. Alain’s youngest son, Kenton, had a fever, and the whole family received treatment for intestinal parasitosis and other issues.

“We needed this clinic,” Alain said. “It is the first time this year that we have had this kind of activity in the area.”

Project HOPE’s Long-Term Response

The earthquake was another major blow for Haiti’s health system, which has struggled to recover from multiple disasters. More than 2,000 people died and 12,000 were injured, many of whom were still recovering from the 2010 earthquake and Hurricane Matthew. Some 137,000 homes were damaged or destroyed and 119,000 people lacked access to clean water.

An ongoing lack of supplies of medicine, medical consumables, and hospital equipment — as well as health workers — has left communities on the brink of despair. The situation is compounded by increasing instability in the country, particularly in Port-au-Prince, which struggles with territorial violence.

In the immediate aftermath of the earthquake, Project HOPE deployed an emergency response team to provide urgent patient care and deliver critical medicines and medical supplies to health facilities in Les Cayes and surrounding areas. Thanks to support from partners Fujifilm and Stabler Foundation, our team on the ground was able to help Haiti’s health care workers meet the greatest needs in the days and months that followed.

With support from the Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance, Project HOPE invested in Haiti’s longer-term recovery by connecting remote communities to care over the next 10 months through support like mobile clinics, clean water filters, and donations of medical supplies. We’ve also reached communities with education around general health and water, sanitation, and hygiene practices.

In all, our team ran 16 mobile and static clinics, supporting over 177,000 free consultations like those given to Alain and his family.

At the same mobile clinic in Bedard, 34-year-old Yvrose arrived five months pregnant after a long journey on the back of a motorcycle. Though months into her pregnancy, she had not been able to have a sonogram and depended on her husband’s small business in Port-au-Prince to provide for all four of their sons. At the clinic, Project HOPE was able to provide her with the first medical care she had received in months.

“I hope this will not be the last mobile clinic in the area,” she said.

What Will Happen If Another Disaster Strikes?

It’s hard to imagine what would happen if a major hurricane were to strike Haiti this season.

“Given the supply chain issues, current security concerns, and the continued impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, a major hurricane would be disastrous for Haiti,” said Chessa Latifi, a senior program advisor at Project HOPE. “It would be a challenge for an impacted region of Haiti to receive the necessary supplies and support to address a health and WASH crisis as the result of a major storm.”

Project HOPE has worked in Haiti for more than 35 years and has a long history of emergency response in the country, including a response to Hurricane Matthew in 2016 and a response to the earthquake in 2010. In the event of another disaster, we will pivot, adapt our work, and lean on our existing network of partners, staff, and supply lines to support the response.

“The greatest needs in the health systems continue to be the insufficiency of medicines, medical consumables, and adequate hospital equipment, as well as the lack of medical personnel in the centers,” Latifi said. “Project HOPE is able to adapt our work as we have an existing network of partners, staff, and supply lines to support such a response.”

> Click here to learn more about our history in Haiti

> PHOTOS: How Project HOPE is Reconnecting Haiti’s Communities to Care